Hacker

On the life of Gideon

In preparation for sermons on Gideon (Judges 6-8), I worked through sections of Wolfgang Bluedorn’s Yahweh Versus Baalism and Eli Assis’s, Self-Interest or Communal Interest, both close readings of these chapters. Below I summarize some of Bluedorn’s salient observations, with occasional references to Assis.

1. The Gideon narrative is a new departure for Judges. Earlier accounts of judges move rapidly from Israel’s rebellion to Israel’s appeal to Yahweh to Yahweh raising up a deliverer who saves them by heroic action on the battlefield (Barak) or in a king’s court (Ehud). Gideon’s story begins typically enough, but then delays the battle and the deliverance for a chapter and a half. All of Judges 6 is intro: the prophet’s announcement, the angel’s commission to Gideon, the sign of the fire, Gideon’s destruction of the altar of Baal, the sign of the fleece, the reduction of his army, and then, finally, a battle, but without battlefield weapons.

Bluedorn argues that this structure highlights the theological frame of the story (Yahweh v. Baal), emphasizes the spiritual problem beneath Israel’s political woes (idolatry), and stresses how faith wins out over fear. More details on how this develops below.

Assis points to the centrality of the Gideon story in Judges. When Abimelech (Judge 9) is included, the story runs to 157 verses; Samson gets less than 100, and all the judges other than Gideon have only 218 verses together. Plus, the Gideon story doesn’t end, like others, with deliverance from an enemy, but “continues into the period after the victory” (Assis, 15).

2. Chapter 6 breaks the expected pattern in two ways. It provides much more information about Israel’s distress than previous chapters, and it inserts a prophet between Israel’s cry for help and the Lord’s decision to raise a deliverer.

Between chapter 3 and chapter 6, the author has devoted progressively more space to the oppression Israel suffers. Cushan-Rishathaim’s enslavement of Israel is described with a general summary (3:7-8); the Moabite enslavement includes Ammon and Amalek, who together conquer Jericho (3:12-13); the intensity of Jabin’s tyranny is highlighted by reference to his 900 iron chariots (4:1-3). The time of enslavement increases each time, from 8 years to 18 to 20.

Then chapter 6. Six full verses are devoted to describing Midianite terrorism (6:1-6). Though it lasts only seven years, it’s horrific. Midian is mentioned four times, their alliance with Amalek is noted, and together these two cover the land like locusts, eating the produce and leaving Israel and their livestock with nothing. To escape, Israel moves underground, into cisterns, caves, and stronghold (cf. Lot in Gen 19), as if descending to the grave.